Sweet Release
by Perchance A Primrose
Summary: Hermione Granger can't stand it anymore. She has to find some way out. Written for the Hermione's Addiction/Breakdown Challenge


**A/N: I actually really, really like this. It was written for the Hermione Addiction/Breakdown Challenge. **

**-Prim**

Hermione Granger did a few spells to make sure that she was alone. She threw back her head and laughed crazily. Who was she kidding? She was never alone. They were always there, the voices, the screams, the ghosts of all the people she loved. They were constantly clawing at the inside of her head. She had to stop the clawing.

Every time she closed her eyes she saw someone else who had died. She had seen so much death in her short thirty eight years of life. She tried to pin point the feeling she was experiencing but couldn't.

Alone. She was truly alone. Hermione Granger-Weasley, tough lawyer, intelligent member of the Golden Trio, unbreakable woman, sank to her knees and cried.

She was surrounded by people but still felt alone. No one understood what was in her mind. No even Ron or Harry. Somehow they had managed to stay sane but not Hermione. She had always known that she was going crazy. It was just a matter of time. Time was up for Hermione in more ways than one.

She composed herself and stood up. A cauldron stood on the other side of the bathroom. It was full of a foul smelling potion. Thank Merlin that Ron refused to come into her bathroom. He would have been horrified if he had found what was in the cauldron. Or worse he would have thrown it out.

Hermione Granger who was always known as the brains of everything Harry Potter did was performing one last great show of intelligence.

It was said that this particular potion was one of the most difficult to brew and could go wrong in so many ways. She took a vial of the potion and set it on the counter. Hermione couldn't help but look in the mirror. She looked much older than 38. She supposed that going mad would be that to you. Her bushy brown hair was streaked with grey and her face was gaunt. Her brown eyes had a wild, crazed look to them.

She was thinner than she had ever been in her life and looked like skin and bones.

The black robes she had been wearing fell in a pile around her so that she was standing in front of the mirror in a t-shirt and jeans.

Her hand dug into her pocket for the pen knife of her father's that she always carried with her. Her father would be horrified that he had given her the blade she would use for this but he would never know because she had never been able to find them in Australia. She hadn't been able to find Wendell and Monica Wilkins.

Hermione shook her head and set back to the task at hand. She flicked open the knife. The light glinted off of the sharp blade and she was mesmerized. She was barely aware of what she was doing until it was done. The pain in her arms was burning but a good burning. It made her feel more alive than she had in months.

The lines that were seeping ruby red were perfectly neat and straight. Ruby red the color of a true Gryffindor. She took the bottle of potion off of the sink and sat down on the cold bathroom floor.

She looked at it and took a deep breath. This was really her only option. The only way to stop the clawing and the nightmares. She wouldn't feel anything.

Her hand trembled as she uncorked the potion- it was her life force. Or rather the thing that would take her life force away. No turning back now. Hermione lifted the bottle to her lips and threw her head back drinking the entire bottle in one shot.

Hermione Granger felt the darkness of the Draught of Living Death take over, of course she wouldn't be living much longer. She sank into a sense of nothingness quickly as the potions coursed through her veins. Nothingness, she discovered, was the best feeling and it was becoming more and more powerful with each beat of her heart. The thing that was working so hard to keep her alive was actually the thing that was killing her. It was pumping blood on to the perfect white linoleum floor and pumping the potion through her body.

It wasn't long before she could feel it coming. The end. She was oblivious to the outside world but somehow she knew. She didn't feel any pain but knew that the final release was coming. It was her final thought and sadly it was the first time the thought had ever occurred to her. Would Ron ever be able to forgive her?

She would never know because it was coming quickly. Then it was over. She would never feel anything ever again because death had come.

Death was true release. Sweet release.

**Please review!**

**-Prim**


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